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>So, as an accommodation, a flag in the preseed mechanism to enable/disable would be helpful.
>But would need to be exposed in maybe the expert mode menus, which I think was already mentioned.
You mean something like:
Template: pkgsel/update-policy
Type: select
Default: unattended-upgrades
Choices-C: none, unattended-upgrades
__Choices: No automatic updates, Install security updates automatically
_Description: Updates management on this system:
Applying updates on a frequent basis is an important part of keeping the
system secure.
.
By default, security updates are automatically installed by the
unattended-upgrades package. Alternatively, you can opt-out from
this system and apply updates manually using standard package management
tools.
pkgsel/update-policy=none thus seem the perfect preseed choice for
your use case.

Use the 'pkgsel' package to find the extracts (the package indicates to not install on a running system):

As a trivial lookup, sources.debian.net will show all the template
files in Debian:
https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=Template%3A+path%3Adebian%2F.*.template
but it's a large set in just sid: ("761 files grepped (4453 results)")...

Or use apt-extracttemplates to look for templates:

apt-extracttemplates is a useful utility in apt-utils. For a set of
udebs
apt-extracttemplates -t $PWD *.udeb
will extract any templates files in the udebs.
rm *.config.*
deletes unneeded files.
All that is needed for a "dictionary" is to tidy up the templates files.
Perhaps
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed#Preseeding_and_the_installer.27s_debconf_templates
helps?

Someone's start at template centralization:

it is unfinished, incomplete and unmaintained, but in 2016 I tried to
create a single page centralising templates.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2016/09/msg00075.html
Anybody is welcome to extend or replace that work

Notes on TFTP netboot assistant locations. I havn't used this, but is worthy of further investigation:

Right now, '$TFTP_ROOT/debian-installer/' is used to set up and serve
the netboot-images. If you also serve preseedings from the canonical
location '$TFTP_ROOT/d-i/', you have a slightly confusing setup.
The plan is to use 'd-i/n-a/' for di-netboot-assistant, to have all
installer stuff within the common '$TFTP_ROOT/d-i/' directory.

A follow up email provides the following useful related entries to this request:

To reduce the size of an install, one possible setting, but may be counter-productive if too much is not installed:

### Base system installation
# Configure APT to not install recommended packages by default. Use of this
# option can result in an incomplete system and should only be used by very
# experienced users.
d-i base-installer/install-recommends boolean false

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